Nouméa has a great mix of coastal and inland picnic spots to make the most of your holiday. Gather your basket of gourmet food and wine, add a fresh baguette and shake out the picnic blanket. With plenty of beautiful places to enjoy your picnic, you'll get to take in beautiful sights and culinary treats, all in one.

Snorkeling

As will be immediately obvious, snorkeling is practiced all over in New Caledonia, year round! This isn’t heaven, it's even better: a colorful show in crystal clear waters, guaranteed, with lots of fish and few people. At your fins, mask and snorkel, the lagoon does not wait!

Nouméa, the capital city of New Caledonia is on the ocean. Several bays extend along the city, providing magnificent beaches and points of view. Besides its natural features, Nouméa also has very attractive cultural offerings for tourists who choose to visit there.

From Ouvéa to the Isle of Pines, passing through Lifou, Tiga and Maré, the five islands bordering the Mainland, Grande Terre to the East are yet more gems to discover. From the blue hole of Hanawa at Ouvéa to the Warrior’s Leap at Wakone on Maré, via the Jokin Cliffs at Lifou or the Oro Bay on the Isle of Pines, let yourself be amazed!

The West Coast of the mainland (Grande Terre) shows off a great variety of scenery from its northern tip down to the area surrounding Nouméa. Characterised by both large spaces favouring cattle farming and a lagoon of stunning beauty, the West Coast is also host to a rich cultural heritage.

The central mountain range of the Mainland (Grande Terre) is a natural boundary, overlooking the very different faces of the East and West Coasts. Exposed to strong winds and therefore more humid, the eastern coast offers scenery with sumptuous flora. With a population of largely Melanesian origin, the East Coast has also retained a particularly charming flavour of authenticity.

The Great South, comprising the Mont-Dore and Yaté municipalities, is the most symbolic region for New Caledonia’s three main colours: blue, green and red. From the rainforest to the mining lands there are a thousand shades of green, while the ocean offers a dazzling palette of blues. But if one colour dominates the Great South, it is the specific red of its ground.

Sarraméa
a flowery village

Isolated, like its neighbour Farino, Sarraméa is a mountainous village situated in the Grande Terre’s central mountain range, 120 km north of Nouméa. Green and floral tourism have developed to the great joy of those who love nature.

Between Table Unio, the commune’s highest point at 1,600 metres, and the remarkable Dogny plateau, the region offers a multitude of sites open for walking or horse-riding. Additionally, each year the Dogny plateau hosts a well-known long-distance trek.

And, to freshen up after a long walk, there’s nothing like the waters of the Trou Feillet, a beautiful natural cavity at the edge of the forest. Just as the nature will do you good, rocky toboggans can offer a lovely sliding sensation.

From the mother of all flowers to the local star: the Anthurium

While the village offers the possibility of visiting (with authorisation ad accompanied by the Great Chief...) one of the last great huts, that of the Petit-Couli tribe, it is in fact to flowers that they owe their high status within the territory.

A festival of tropical plants took place here in February, and the territory’s botanists get together in March for the flowering of the Amborella trichopoda, the mother of all flowers.

This species, native to New Caledonia's rainforests, in fact belongs to the earliest line of flowering plants. In other words, the genome of the common ancestor of all flowers split in two around 200 million years ago. The first branch gave birth to Amborella trichopoda, the only survivor of this line, with its 14,000 genes. The second branch gave birth to some 300,000 flowering plants counted around the world!

Today

La Foa Tourism

Opening hours: from Monday to Saturday from 8:30am to 4:30pm, and Sunday 8:30am to 10:30am. Closed 1st Wednesday of every month

At the time of the first colonists, at the end of the 19th century, Sarraméa was known for its coffee plantations. The Feillet colonists (named for the governor who contributed to accelerating the agricultural colonisation) cultivated these precious ‘cherries’, which were needed to produce the famous Leroy coffee. The coffee which, they say, Sir Winston Churchill himself used to drink. Even today, some enthusiasts continue to grow coffee on the slopes of the commune, thus keeping this 100-year-old tradition going...

What to do in Sarraméa?

The Anthurium fair in November: a sight for sore eyes!

With the exception of this plant of antediluvian origins, the local star is the Anthurium, often nicknamed ‘tongue of fire’. This plant from the Araceae family numbers almost one thousand species, and Sarraméa is full of them! Unsurprisingly, there is an Anthurium fair in the village on the third Sunday in November. A real sight for sore eyes!

If you cannot attend this fair, you should know that Anthuriums are available in the village market all year round, which takes place on the fourth Sunday of every month, as well as the Christmas market in December.